A couple quick things:
Due to recent increases in trollerly, I’m being a bit more cautious about whom I let comment freely here, and while I will let new commenters post, I will be keeping them on moderation until I’m convinced they’re sincere, and not creepy abusive assholes, etc. In general I will be a bit quicker on the moderate/ban button.
EDITED TO ADD: If you’re a new commenter and want to be taken off moderation more quickly, email me with some info about yourself so I know who you are. (This info will be kept confidential.)
If someone is acting egregiously in the comments, please email me about it.
And generally, keep safe. Be careful with personal info. There are angry assholes everywhere.
On a happier note: Remember that thing about Sandra Fluke and her (allegedly) lesbian fingers? PZ Myers has torn apart the dubious science behind relative-finger-length-gaydar.
Vanilla as a descriptor, in general, can obviously be used in a dismissive manner but I haven’t seen it used as a slur as far as “vanilla sex” goes.
This
and this
as a response to boomboom’s post, however, I don’t get. What I mean is: yes, the stereotypes used against the kink community are problematic and need to be challenged and erased. But, what does that have to do with what “vanilla” people would like to be addressed as. I don’t personally have any issues with people referring to my sexuality as vanilla, but if “vanilla” people, as a group, felt that vanilla is offensive, what’s the issue with wanting to change that?
I mean lowquacks is absolutely right that it would be the “honky” or “breeder” of sexual slurs, but it would still be a slur. I don’t go to random white people and refer to them as honkies in general conversation. If I refer to a white person as honky, it’s usually because I’m insulting them.
Go Polli and Holly, they say all the smart shit.
I don’t mind vanilla. When I think to vanilla, I think too vanilla ice-cream, a food people in small part to feed but mainly by pleasure.
Vanilla is taste most know, and that a majority of people enjoy. Cheap vanilla (which is actually artificial vanilla) is very plain, but vanilla can be good and it can be really awesome.
Good vanilla ice-cream with just-picked rasberries and a bit of chantilly on a hot day? One of the best desert I’ve ever eaten.
Anyway, my food fantasies apart, I think we all agree that no word or ‘normal’ are not acceptable. But the only proposition I’ve read so far is another taste, and I don’t see that solving anything.
I also agree with polliwog, the problem is more the intention than the choice of word, though I’m still open with a new one.
@Pecunium: One of the things I see with terms like vanilla is that those who are offended, get told to suck it up. That, as a slur, it’s not that bad.
That’s part of the reason it offends me
I don’t choose to use the word (food term). I use straight and heternormative and such like terms.
If Boomboom and others want to coin new terms and use them, go for it–they can be a part of deconstructing the normativity involved in the coinage of that term, great. Or they can challenge those who are actually using it as a slur. BB said it was not something that happened to them here–so why bring it up. .
Context matters: coming to people who have been stigmatized for quite a while and who face real social consequences for their sexualities and asking for sympathy is not going to get them very far.
I also don’t really care if white people are offended by discussion of whiteness, or men by analysis/discussion/deconstruction/terminologies associated with theories questioning masculinity.
Maybe telling them to suck it up is “offensive.” But white people complaining about racism, and straight people complaining about the nasty language of queer people is still not something I can find myself having much sympathy for.
So I’m a bitch. I’ve been called worse.
@Polliwog and Holly: +1000000000000000000000
@Shadow: I don’t personally have any issues with people referring to my sexuality as vanilla, but if “vanilla” people, as a group, felt that vanilla is offensive, what’s the issue with wanting to change that?
Nothing wrong with wanting to change language–the wrongness is coming to people who (as far as I can tell, as Boomboom said, are not as a group using it as a slur) in a number of cases part of the groups whose sexualities are illegal, marginalized, closeted, etc. and (apparently, as I read the post) putting the onus on that group to change–and maybe also acknowledging that even if it’s used as a slur (which it it not always), that slur carries little chance of major problems with it (for example, I doubt anybody wrote graffitti about BoomBoom in a public bathroom accusing them of being vanilla–graffitti was written in the women’s room where I work about me).
And as Polliwog said, the problem isn’t the word–it’s possible to use ANY word as a slur. Look how the MRA”s use “girl” and all its associated ways in horribly insulting ways.
While I don’t know what BB intended, the post came across to me as typical of the “member of dominant group appropriating language to claim victimization” and that is not usually going to end well.
A friend of mine on Fetlife made a user photo for themselves that was a picture of an ice cream cone crossed out. For the longest time I thought the sign said “No ice cream”, until they pointed out to me that the ice cream was supposed to be vanilla (“no vanilla”). I don’t think it makes much sense either way. 😛
RE: Ithiliana
I don’t choose to use the word (food term). I use straight and heternormative and such like terms.
Can I just say that as a gay trans man, the idea of anyone calling any of my sex heteronormative makes me angry as hell? I feel the same way about that as I do the lesbians who’re willing to date me, because I guess I don’t “count.”
I readily admit I don’t get the vanilla as a slur thing, but I guess that’s because I’ve never been mocked for it. If anything, I’m considered intrinsically exotic, so ANYTHING I do is therefore holyshitweird. *rolls eyes*
Also, sure, heterosexual queers exist. Ace folk! Poly folk! People with unusual desires! Trans folk, if they ID that way. (Some don’t.)
I have only ever heard “vanilla” used as a slur.
Not to nitpick, but asexuals don’t really qualify as heterosexual at all. Even heteroromantic aces aren’t heterosexual.
@LBT : I would not call a gay trans man heteronormative. Why would you think I would?;
I’m getting a bit confused because, to me, kinky sex and queer sex are very different things, despite the perception that queer sex is inherently kinkier. According to my definition, two men or two women can have non-kinky (or vanilla or whatever term people prefer) sex. I wouldn’t call that sex heteronormative by any means. Am I talking about something different than everybody else?
RE: Lauralot
*shrug* I’ve met ace folk who ID as straight when they’re heteromantic. I mean, I’m trans, so obviously I can’t be homoSEXual, only homoGENDERal. But then my head starts to ache.
RE: Ithiliana
I didn’t mean that you’d automatically see such sex as heteronormative. It just made me a little uncomfortable that you mentioned using that or straight synonymously with vanilla. I’m sure you wouldn’t call anything I did straight, it was just something that caught my eye.
Then again, I’ve really never heard the term vanilla used as a slur at all. Seriously, this is all news to me. O_o I mean, I’ve heard the sneers about me being mono, but never vanilla. But then again, I don’t know much of anyone who DOESN’T have that kind of sex at least every once in a while.
@ithiliana
Fair enough. To me boomboom’s post read as “This has been on my mind and I wanted to discuss it with you guys to pick your brains”. I felt it wasn’t so much addressed to the kinky people here as it was to the general community, both vanilla and kinky, to get their thoughts on the matter. I actually got where you were coming from after reading your response. It was just that DSC’s post seemed quite adversarial, so I was wondering if zie had an issue with vanilla people wanting to change that term. I don’t know if zie also felt that boomboom’s post was putting the onus on kinky people to change.
And I fully agree with that fount of wisdom that Polliwog blessed us with.
*I actually got where you were coming from after reading your response to boomboom’s post
Yeah, I’m confused why Ithiliana would use “heteronormative” to refer to vanilla people. There are a lot of queer people who don’t like the hittysex, and straight people who do.
Hellkell: Really? I don’t mean to question your experience here, but the vast majority of the time I’ve heard the word “vanilla,” it’s referring to vanilla sex/people in a neutral or even positive way (like “that boy is great at vanilla sex”). Man, you must have encountered some asshole kinksters.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard “vanilla” used as a slur, but that’s probably because practically the only person I’ve seen use it (in the context of sex) is Holly.
Fun Fact! The top three contexts I experience the word “vanilla” in my life are:
1. Food by a wide margin
2. Magic: The Gathering – a “vanilla” creature is one with no rules text
3. Sex on the Pervocracy and other feminist sites
Talking of trolls (and apologies if it’s old news: I haven’t read every comments thread recently), ‘Matriarchy’ (aka MRAL) ended up in the Pharyngula dungeon.
His fatal mistake was to repeat the same schtick that he did over here – i.e. admitting that he was a troll. Which is an automatic banning offense over there.
Yeah, as someone who sometimes engages in vanilla sex, I’m really not seeing a big issue with “vanilla.” Sure, sometimes kinky people use it in a snarky way, but there really isn’t any term out there that is better. What are you going to call it, “normal sex?” That would demonize kinky sex.
I mean, if someone comes up with a better term, I’ll use it, but I haven’t seen one anywhere.
Also, vanilla really does taste good. Apple pie with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream? Mmmm.
I’m not making a double entendre there. I just like apple pie with vanilla ice cream.
has to be warm apple pie…cold apple pie just does not work right with ice cream.
Can we call kinky sex apple pie? Let’s name all styles of sex after delicious desserts!
Aww, now I want pie. Or sex. Or tomato and shrimp over sizzling rice.
tomato and shrimp over sizzling rice
YES. With crumbled feta; or, as the kids today call it, “doing it the Greek way.”
(apologies for disgusting)
My boyfriend and I have started using delicious foods as terms of endearment. As in, “How much do I love you? I love you cheese. No, no. I love you bacon.”
Last night he called me just to tell me he loved me turducken.
Vanilla is my favorite ice cream flavor. Vanilla is also my favorite kind of sex. I know that I do not speak for anyone but myself, but as someone who engages primarily in what is often described as vanilla sex, I am not in the least offended by the term. I have tried to find a less offensive term for it but have been unsuccessful. Anything I can come up with sounds like it is a fake term designed to mock the concept of non-offensive terms. Now, I have never felt discriminated against for being vanilla, so perhaps I do not understand why such a term is unsatisfactory. Could anyone here who has been offended by the term explain the problem to me? Sorry for being clueless, but on this topic I freely admit to being clueless and am asking to be given a clue, if one of you has one to share.
Ozy, you did just question my experience. Perhaps they were asshole kinksters, I don’t know, I guess they can’t all be wonderful. I was just mentioning that that’s the only time I’ve really heard it used.